16 Answers

If you keep playing and play regularly, you’ll stop doing that. Practice makes perfect.

When I first started and for the first few years even, I never thought I would ever look away from my hands (especially with the harder songs). This was a problem as I sing too. BUT, if you stick with it, you kind of just “learn” how to do it.

It’s the same as typing. After a while you don’t need to. I only look if I have nothing better to look at (eg if I’m playing alone in my room or something). When I’m on stage I always look at the crowd or the other musicians (there’s a lot of on-stage communication, like what to do next, difficult bits coming up, instructions on sound, rhythm etc).

once the the muscle memory kicks in you will not need the visual clue. But it can be that you think you need to look even if you don’t. Have you tried just closing your eyes and visualising your fretting hand.

One thing I found that helped was to practice a song for a little bit, and then try playing it in the dark. You can still look obviously, but it’s a lot harder to see, so you’re going way more off “instinct” of where your hands are and need to be.

@Tink1113 Sit and look at the neck memorize where the first couple frets are , memorize some chord shapes and some riffs . When you have that done , stand or sit and fix your gaze on something in front of yourself .
Try not to look away from that spot you will find you will glance down from time to time you could even close your eyes .
OR

If you have a riff or couple chords you use alot just play them slowly , again fix your focus on something else you will make the odd mistake its normal